Employing someone to work at their home, possibly as a contractor.. How To?

optimusgrime

Hi Guy. Say my company wanted to hire someone to do some sort of job remotely, eg answer customer service questions by email. We don't have an office where they could work from to begin with, nor would they really need to be here in any case, the work could easily be done remotely from their home etc.

What would be the best/most cost efficent way of getting someone to do this? Could you hire someone as a contractor? What would be the advantages of this way? How would it work if you wanted to hire someone in another country to do this?

Any advice or places to look for guidance on this would be much appreciated.

EIREHotspur

Just advertise for an Internet Customers Service Admin.

Proficient in Email, Social Media (Facebook, Twitter etc),

Dear God I hope your not thinking of going down the Cheapo Ship It Overseas for Customer Service.

I have dealt with horrendous cases where there might as well be no service.
It's different for companies like Dell who spend a lot of money and put a system in place.
The Lone Ranger approach usually won't work so well.

Good luck.

optimusgrime

Thanks for the reply.

I had a look at odesk etc but I don't think it would be a good route, would rather someone based here in Ireland or the UK who I could speak to in person.

How would it work in terms of employing them to work freelance or as a contractor?

If it's possible it would be nice to be able to avoid having them as a fully fledged employee.

Chet Zar

Hey OP,

Sounds like you are a ready made customer for a virtual assistant (VA)! I've seen these crop up a lot lately - you can hire someone to handle all your admin/customer service work remotely. Seems like an inexpensive, very handy option. I don't anyone personally but I'm sure if you have a google or have a look on Twitter you'll find someone to come recommended.

optimusgrime

Any further advice on this would be much appreciated!

melanieup

A virtual assistant should be able to do that for you. Visit Society of Virtual Assistants and ask the friendly VA's on there if any of them could possibly help you. alldayPA answer my phones, not sure but they might answer emails also? Worth a look.

optimusgrime

Thanks for that.

Ideally what I'd like to do is find someone that's self employed/a freelancer based in Ireland that could bill us for service provided, sort of similar to the way a lot of web developers work. The amount of hours needed is likely to vary.

There seems to be a lot of people set up like this in the UK on sites such as peopleperhour, but not so many in Ireland. It would certainly help if the person was based here in terms of training them in how things work and also the peace of mind of dealing with a person that is based here as opposed to abroad.

Does this sound like a realistic option? I found this site: http://www.freelanceireland.ie/ but there's nobody suitable listed there.

Any further advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks

foxymarrylou

Hi optimusgrime, just PM'd you.